Can Drinking Beer Lower the Risk of Heart Attack?

People who are conscious about their heart health have been reaching for wine for years but a latest research has found that beer can also work better for your ticker than wine.

According to the study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health Care, women who drank beer more than once a week had lowered their risk of heart attack by 30 percent than women who drank beer more than twice a week or had no beer at all.

In the study, researchers has overlooked around 1,500 women aged 32 to 60 and asks how often they drank beer, wine or hard alcohol. After 32 years, they followed up and found that 185 women had a heart attack, 162 had a heart stroke, 160 developed diabetes and 345 developed cancer.

Researchers have found that moderate beer drinking can lower the risk of heart attack but they did not find any relation with wine-drinkers.

Wine is considered as the heart-healthy alcoholic beverage but scientists have linked beer with heart health. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine have found that men who had beer for at least three to four days a week had lowered the risk of heart attack than men who had alcohol once a week.

Kenneth J. Mukamal, MD, an associate professor of medicine at the Harvard School of Public Health who carried out this study tells that in most cases, alcohol consumption is associated with lowering the risk of heart attack. However, this study has found that drinking beer was more beneficial.

Mukamal said that having one or two drinks each week seems to be beneficial for heart. According to the National Institutes of Health, 12 ounces is considered as one serving of beer, five ounces of wine is considered as one serving and 1.5 ounces of hard alcohol is considered as one serving.

Moderate drinking not only lowers the risk of heart disease but also increases HDL, the good cholesterol and lowers the stickiness of blood cells, Mukamal said. He also said that Moderate beer-drinking can also lower the risk of hypertension and helps in maintaining good mineral bone density.